ARCAM DiVA AVR280 HOME CINEMA RECEIVER @ Superfi £399.95

What HI-Fi wrote in June 2007: "Terrific sound with both movies and music", "We're impressed, and we're sure you will be too: the AVR280 is so good, it could pose problems for its more expensive stablemate", "Another brilliant new Arcam home cinema design".

Indeed, but It still appears to be a current model that’s highly regarded within the AV community.

10th Oct 2008

i cant see how this can be a good deal tbh just look at whats around now for this same money!richersounds.com/sho…BLK and thats without trying too hard...any audiophiles want to chip in on this one so people dont get too hung up on this one. cheers

11th Oct 2008

Hi,it ain't Denon,Yamaha,etc etc.Its a Arcam,you will prob either love or hate the sound probably.Certainly a big Fan Club in the Audiophile world for Arcam.Check out in AV forums etc.Go have a listen if you can,everyone as a different perception whats good or bad.Certainly a Kudos name compared to others,if you like name dropping

Cheers BOB

ps you buy a Arcam for the sound/sound quality(this will certainly sound better with music ie CD,than most other makes,so a bonus,maybe one box less) etc,more than the Gimmicks/extra features etc.And maybe Kudos

pps In AV or HiFi,more newer stuff,normally just as more extras(HDMI etc),sound quality might even get worse.

ppps remember this will be good,but it will only be as good as the rest of the system,so get ready to spend some more money on speakers etc.To bring the best out of it.One more step to skintdom

11th Oct 2008

Great price for such a good amp. Personally I use an Onkyo 875 for my AV and an older Arcam amp for music. To get a very capable amp for both under £400 is a really good deal. Arcams tend to have a warmer, more natural sound than many AV Amps. In my view this is what makes them relaxing and enjoyable to listen to music on, they don't sound at all hard on the ears. The more aggressive sound of something like a good Onkyo does make action films come alive a bit more though.

Bear in mind this is cheap because:

1. It does not process the latest HD Audio onboard such as DTS Master and Dolby True HD (most of the time the Bluray / HDDVD player will do this for you though).2. It only has 2 HDMI inputs when many people already need more (HDMI Switches are very cheap though).

If I was looking for a dual use amp for music and movies at the moment I wouldn't hesitiate.

11th Oct 2008

From a long time audiophile this will blow away other amps currently priced at £400. Fair enough it's not got the ability to play the latest codecs but that is not everything. In fact it's far from everything. Plus Arcam are an industry recognised name.

The amplification will be of far better quality. The power supplies will also be superb. The DACs will also be a cut above the rest.

For music lovers out there you will still need to spend £1200 on a home cinema amp (a lot less on a dedicated two channel amp) to get as good sound. For movies it has hdmi and will probably sound a lot better than amps with a rrp of £400 due to the quality of the components.

Finally, it looks so much better than cheaper home cinema amps. That's worth some of the cost alone.

This is an amazing deal.

11th Oct 2008

What is this used for? im not sure what are theses

11th Oct 2008

Silver only at that price (black is an extra £100) - silver finish is fine for those who like to relax in 'crimpolene slacks' & wear kipper ties, but for the rest of us, black is the only black in the game.

11th Oct 2008

What Hi-Fi pretty much hated this amp when they reviewed it at the £1200 mark. They basically said it was lacking in features. It's still lacking in features compared to current £400 amps, no HD-Audio, no upscaling, no upconversion, no auto-setup, only 2 HDMIs and it can't even take PCM audio over HDMI! (it has to be over analogue multichannel). I wonder if it can make this up through sound quality?

As always though sound is VERY subjective. If it sounds better than the competition to your ears then it IS better than the competition. Reviews are pretty useless for judging sound quality.

1) HD audio decoding. Doesn't matter at all if your Bluray player can do this (mine can)2) Video scaling. Matters for playback of non-HD stuff, mainly DVD and SD TV channels. If your TV scales well already (most lower end ones don't), this doesn't matter a jot. Doesn't matter for me, as I have a HTPC doing the scaling anyway.3) No room eq. This is a bit of a shame, it's a nice feature.

Home cinemachoice gave it 5/5 for sound, 3/5 for features. Seems to be a common theme in reviews, so it basically comes down to whether you need those missing features or not.

11th Oct 2008

Note that it only switches HDMI, no HDMI audio (PCM/Bitstream).

So if you want 5.1/7.1 uncompressed (PCM) or lossless (TrueHD/DTS-Master) audio from Bluray you need a player with 5.1/7.1 analogue out.

If you connect via optical TOSLINK you only get Dolby Digital, DTS or 2 channel PCM.

11th Oct 2008

kiwinator;3172536

What is this used for? im not sure what are theses

I don't know either mate but I'd guess if we don't know what it is we don't need one !

11th Oct 2008

hd1080ts;3172710

Note that it only switches HDMI, no HDMI audio (PCM/Bitstream).

Yes, that's a major shame, cos it means you need a bluray player with really good DACs. Other than that, you could go for a bog standard bluray player, no need to pay top dollar at all, and even use the Bluray player as a DVD source.

11th Oct 2008

hd1080ts;3172710

Note that it only switches HDMI, no HDMI audio (PCM/Bitstream).So if you … Note that it only switches HDMI, no HDMI audio (PCM/Bitstream).So if you want 5.1/7.1 uncompressed (PCM) or lossless (TrueHD/DTS-Master) audio from Bluray you need a player with 5.1/7.1 analogue out.If you connect via optical TOSLINK you only get Dolby Digital, DTS or 2 channel PCM.

From what I understand Arcam refuse to do audio over HDMI because they believe there's too much of a trade-off on sound quality.

11th Oct 2008

Good deal.Just get a blu-ray player with the decoding built in and you're laughing. I had a AVR300 - nearly identical to this, and was very pleased with the sound quality- certainly for music a fair bit better than a Air Studios AX2 Pioneer model

11th Oct 2008

very good name, very good stuff u get what u want with arcam top stuff never heard anyone moan about them.,

12th Oct 2008

simon2490;3166970

i cant see how this can be a good deal tbh just look at whats around now … i cant see how this can be a good deal tbh just look at whats around now for this same money!http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=ONKY-TXSR606-BLK and thats without trying too hard...any audiophiles want to chip in on this one so people dont get too hung up on this one. cheers

Very different sides of the market. Onkyo are currently one of the leader as far as features are concerned. Lots of buttons, lots of settings, lots of processing.

Arcam tend to concentrate on sound quality. They do not chase features, they chase sound quality.

Now what is best for you? Depends. But if you are really interested in the subject, doing a bit of research and much more importantly, going to listen to different equipment is the way to go.

12th Oct 2008

Well there you have it guys the usual audiophile reviews...for the average jo out there stay clear of this bit of kit if you want home cinema...for the ones in the know i suppose it might be a good deal although if you just want an music amp then go get just that lol...

12th Oct 2008

hd1080ts;3172710

Note that it only switches HDMI, no HDMI audio (PCM/Bitstream).So if you … Note that it only switches HDMI, no HDMI audio (PCM/Bitstream).So if you want 5.1/7.1 uncompressed (PCM) or lossless (TrueHD/DTS-Master) audio from Bluray you need a player with 5.1/7.1 analogue out.If you connect via optical TOSLINK you only get Dolby Digital, DTS or 2 channel PCM.

oooh! nice post. that's a deal breaker in 2008 for £400.

It's like 2nd hand Marantz bargains, £5000 receiver for £400 but the point is: does it really serve as a centre of the rest of your kit that you bought in 2007/2008?

Onkyo steal the crown in this price range me thinks.

12th Oct 2008

big arcam fan, honestly considering this one, sound quality is the only concern i have.

i dont see why hdmi scaling the amount of ports and the latest sony sound processing have in a purchase

i normally only use a few different sound profiles depending on whether its film or tv.

12th Oct 2008

I was considering buying one of these last night. I think the guys before have said it all, lacks features compared to Onkyo, Sony, Yamaha etc, but will probably be better in terms of sound quality especially for stereo. Plus looks cool and has snob appeal with the Arcam name. I think I'm going to go for a stereo amp for now instead though...BTW Superfi aren't the only people doing it for this price.moorgateacoustics.co.uk/ind…838

12th Oct 2008

Our current living room doesn't lend itself well to a surround sound setup, but I've got a nice pair of Acoustic Energy floorstanders at the front by the television (ready to be filled in with some matching bookshelf AEs for surround at a later date) just running from a 2 channel stereo amp.

But back to today: will running this, or any other surround amp., without loudspeakers on the surround speaker outputs, for a prolonged period, cause it upset?

12th Oct 2008

I've never owned one because I couldn't afford it but Arcam are for me the best brand. I used to work in a hifi shop and was always impressed by Arcam. Less bells and whistles, yes but fantastic sound. I also loved mission/cyrus stuff. They just bought out detail of the music that I never thought was there. As previously stated it seems to lack the harshness of some of the jap brands. Acoustic instruments like guitar used to sound amazing. £400 for an amp sounds great but getting all the other stuff to really show it off is a small fortune to me sadly.

12th Oct 2008

mix;3174940

Our current living room doesn't lend itself well to a surround sound … Our current living room doesn't lend itself well to a surround sound setup, but I've got a nice pair of Acoustic Energy floorstanders at the front by the television (ready to be filled in with some matching bookshelf AEs for surround at a later date) just running from a 2 channel stereo amp.But back to today: will running this, or any other surround amp., without loudspeakers on the surround speaker outputs, for a prolonged period, cause it upset?

cant speak from experience with this amp but for some considerable time AVR's have had the processing abitlity to configure either manually (or these days automatically) to tell it exactly how many speakers / what size / frequency range etc etc. So no it will be perfectly happy. you can just set it to 'stereo' anyways.

That onkyo link posted at RS is a different class - quality wise and stereo reproduction wise this arcam will wipe the floor with it (providing you like the arcams distinctive sound, its good for accoustic / unplugged music i think). I've got an Onkyo 875 and im not impressed buy it at all, the feature list is impressive but you can really see where they cut corners....1. Its ugly - I know all onkyo products are, and thankfully mine is in black so not as bad as the horrendously plasticy cheapy looking 'silver' models.2. The quality is highly questionable as is their customer 'support'. The first 875 i had i took out of the box plugged in just speakers and ran the auto set-up. Before it finished it, and i mean literally here, exploded. A large plume of smoke then poured from the top of the unit. This is in addition to the fact the cabinet was scratched already when i opened the box. My replacement was also marked but i couldnt be bothered to return another one.3. Stereo wise for a the 875 cost its very disappointing sounds on a par with my yamaha 575 AVR4. this thing is sooooooooo hot i don't need the radiator on in my lounge anymore. To touch it will burn your hand.

So you gotta weigh what you want, personally i wont be buying another onkyo product features over quality / looks is not a route ill follow again.

deleted58884

12th Oct 2008

jbp;3174737

BTW Superfi aren't the only people doing it for this … BTW Superfi aren't the only people doing it for this price.http://www.moorgateacoustics.co.uk/index.php?product_id=1990818&option=Prod_detail&image_id=584838

Onkyo has a lot of support in the home cinema press and it regularly wins "best buy" awards so it is now being hailed as a benchmark brand:whistling:

13th Oct 2008

I think it comes down to what is your main use for this amp. If you want something which is good with cinema but amazing for music then go for this. You will love listening to music on a good pair of stereo speakers.If all you want it for is cinema and games playing then something like the Onkyo will probably be better + future proof.

I've been through a few Marantz + Yamaha amps for surround sound and can't say enough good things about my current Yamaha - DSP-AX761. It also lacked some of the Onkyo features but it's great at surround sound + superb for music with it's 'Pure Direct' option + cost me £200 thanks to hotukdeals.

15th Oct 2008

no such thing as audiophile quality in any AV amp - too many ICs messing up everything.

but Id still take the Arcam if money not an issue. you know it will be quality, theyve never made a poor product, pure class.

£1200 new ? no AV amp should cost this much, unless u live in a mansion and need huge power.

15th Oct 2008

Onkyo or Arcam ? for same price ?

no choice at all, Arcam everytime.

Onkyo is one of richer own brand names these days, better off with a £ 200 sony amp than that £400 Onkyo.